ROM The Spaceknight Coming to the IDW Transformers Universe?

Remember ROM The Spaceknight? He was one the plethora of robot toys that were launched back in the early 80's, and Milton Bradley and Marvel had hoped to build a franchise around his cosmic adventures. Unfortunately for Milton Bradley the toy tanked, but the Marvel comic gained a following and ran for several years.

So why are we talking about him? Over the past year or so ROM has been showing up on the Transformers radar. This mysterious silver Transformers Bot Shot was among the new figures displayed one year ago at Toy Fair 2013.

Sadly, the Bot Shots line seems to be in limbo and ROM has yet to see a release. However, that may not be end of the line for our silver robotic friend. Hasbro quietly filed for three ROM The Spaceknight trademarks, as cataloged below by Lee Seitz on his blog EclecticLee:

So, there are currently three trademarks Hasbro has applied for. The first is for comic books and was granted in April 2013. They've already used the first of their five possible extensions to use it in commerce (i.e. publish a ROM comic book). Extensions are required every six months if Hasbro doesn't have proof of use. Five extensions give them three years to do so.

The second trademark is for "toy action figures and toy robots convertible into other visual toy forms," which leads to the already existing rumor that Hasbro is going to make Rom part of the Transformers toy line. It, too, was granted in April 2013 and has had one extension filed against it.

The final trademark is for "entertainment services, namely an on-going animated television series for children." This one was only granted in June 2013 and, because I've gotten lazy, is new to me. It would seem to contradict Hasbro making Rom part of the Transformers, unless such a TV series would be a spin-off of Transformers: Prime or something. The first extension was just granted last month.

Bleeding Cool builds upon this by mentioning they've heard from a reliable comics source that IDW will be making a move on this property soon. Lots of potential within the Transformers universe for ROM. IDW's Transformers universe includes multiple robotic races, and let's not forget the upcoming BotCon theme features knights.

Awesome at first glance, but even if they secure ol' Toaster-Head himself, ROM was so thoroughly entangled in the Marvel Universe that just about anything tied to his mythos would be owned by Disney, right? Entertainment-wise, I'd see a lot more potential if Hasbro was licensing him out for them to use in movies, cartoons, comics, etc.

Then again, if they also establish their grip on Dire Wraiths, who can assume any form they encounter, even Cybertronians, that could produce one awesome arc where the Autobots learn that only Galador ever had the technology to detect Wraiths, and race to find ROM while not knowing if they've been infiltrated.

Those giant Deathwing birds could also go toe-to-toe with TFs without any real power-level-fudging, but if they were in the comics yet not mentioned on ROM's original box, it seems unlikely that they could wrest them from Marvel's grasp...unless MB asserted that anyone/-thing that debuted in ROM's title was their property like Hasbro did with the Transformers book. I'm basing that on the legal situation with Circuit Breaker debuting in Secret Wars II, but with ROM's title, Marvel kept a good comic going for years after its toyline died out of the starting gate, so it's just as likely that MB didn't care enough to assert ownership after the first two years or so.

But yeah, this guy's LONG overdue for an updated figure...unfortunately, the best Hasbro line to make that happen would probably be...Marvel Legends. Doh.

Or maybe Hasbro could start their own generic legends-esque line where they do figures of characters from toylines too old and dead to risk reviving unless they can drum up interest from collectors first?

Bumblevivisector wrote:Awesome at first glance, but even if they secure ol' Toaster-Head himself, ROM was so thoroughly entangled in the Marvel Universe that just about anything tied to his mythos would be owned by Disney, right? Entertainment-wise, I'd see a lot more potential if Hasbro was licensing him out for them to use in movies, cartoons, comics, etc.

Then again, if they also establish their grip on Dire Wraiths, who can assume any form they encounter, even Cybertronians, that could produce one awesome arc where the Autobots learn that only Galador ever had the technology to detect Wraiths, and race to find ROM while not knowing if they've been infiltrated.

Those giant Deathwing birds could also go toe-to-toe with TFs without any real power-level-fudging, but if they were in the comics yet not mentioned on ROM's original box, it seems unlikely that they could wrest them from Marvel's grasp...unless MB asserted that anyone/-thing that debuted in ROM's title was their property like Hasbro did with the Transformers book. I'm basing that on the legal situation with Circuit Breaker debuting in Secret Wars II, but with ROM's title, Marvel kept a good comic going for years after its toyline died out of the starting gate, so it's just as likely that MB didn't care enough to assert ownership after the first two years or so.

But yeah, this guy's LONG overdue for an updated figure...unfortunately, the best Hasbro line to make that happen would probably be...Marvel Legends. Doh.

Or maybe Hasbro could start their own generic legends-esque line where they do figures of characters from toylines too old and dead to risk reviving unless they can drum up interest from collectors first?

If Hasbro got their hands on it then it means that Marvel let it lapse, and likely before they got picked up by Disney. That means he's Hasbro's beeotch now and more power to them. Anything they can snatch up before the House of Mouse gets it is cool with me, even if they are in bed with them as far as making figures for their various properties.

I have to admit though that I never thought I would see or hear anything of ROM ever again outside of any of the various collectibles shops I frequent. It was a line that I never got into but did peruse a comic or two and remember the toys (vaguely) but that's all buried in the dusty recesses of my childhood.

And darn it Sabrblade... you beat me to the punch with the Knights of Cybertron line.

It'll be cool if that's how they tie him in though. What a head trip that would be.

I don't think it's been that long since the Dire Wraiths appeared in Marvel Comics (I think they were antagonists in the Initiative series?), so unfortunately I doubt that they'll be in the series.

But...

What if they redo his storyline so that Cybertronians are what the Galdorians called Dire Wraiths? IDW has already played up the idea that the Cybertronians are essentially the most destructive and reviled race in the galaxy, and the Decepticon's six phase infiltration protocol fits, from what I know...

T-Macksimus wrote:If Hasbro got their hands on it then it means that Marvel let it lapse, and likely before they got picked up by Disney. That means he's Hasbro's beeotch now and more power to them. Anything they can snatch up before the House of Mouse gets it is cool with me, even if they are in bed with them as far as making figures for their various properties.

I certainly hope that's the case, but when was the last time he showed up in a Marvel book? Just checked Wikipedia, and it seems he once appeared, unnamed, to skirt the loss of the trademark. Marvel also seemed comfortable saying "SpaceKnight", probably because that's generic enough. The 2000 SpaceKnights limited series with ROM and Brandy's children and some characters named after the original SpaceKnights almost seems problematic (haven't read it yet; I've only read up to about ROM's 3rd annual), but that's probably also ancient history to lawyers. They mentioned Dire Wraiths in the first season of the 'effing Super Hero Squad Show of all things (in fact, that's the only reason I forced myself to watch that whole season), so that had me thinking Marvel had plans for him.

EDIT: Oh, so they WERE used recently. They were declared a subspecies of Skrull back in the '80s, so I'm not surprised. Good idea about shape-shifting Cybertronians being possible culprits this time out Caelus; I was thinking maybe the Reapers wiped out Galador.

Yeah, I shouldn't worry too much about his mythos from the old book, because IDW can just make up different but similar stuff for their continuity, and maybe entangle him with all of the other properties they're publishing, sort of like they're doing with X-Files right now. ROM just makes a good fish-out-of-water guest star.

Bumblevivisector wrote:Awesome at first glance, but even if they secure ol' Toaster-Head himself, ROM was so thoroughly entangled in the Marvel Universe that just about anything tied to his mythos would be owned by Disney, right? Entertainment-wise, I'd see a lot more potential if Hasbro was licensing him out for them to use in movies, cartoons, comics, etc.

Then again, if they also establish their grip on Dire Wraiths, who can assume any form they encounter, even Cybertronians, that could produce one awesome arc where the Autobots learn that only Galador ever had the technology to detect Wraiths, and race to find ROM while not knowing if they've been infiltrated.

Those giant Deathwing birds could also go toe-to-toe with TFs without any real power-level-fudging, but if they were in the comics yet not mentioned on ROM's original box, it seems unlikely that they could wrest them from Marvel's grasp...unless MB asserted that anyone/-thing that debuted in ROM's title was their property like Hasbro did with the Transformers book. I'm basing that on the legal situation with Circuit Breaker debuting in Secret Wars II, but with ROM's title, Marvel kept a good comic going for years after its toyline died out of the starting gate, so it's just as likely that MB didn't care enough to assert ownership after the first two years or so.

But yeah, this guy's LONG overdue for an updated figure...unfortunately, the best Hasbro line to make that happen would probably be...Marvel Legends. Doh.

Or maybe Hasbro could start their own generic legends-esque line where they do figures of characters from toylines too old and dead to risk reviving unless they can drum up interest from collectors first?

If Hasbro got their hands on it then it means that Marvel let it lapse, and likely before they got picked up by Disney. That means he's Hasbro's beeotch now and more power to them. Anything they can snatch up before the House of Mouse gets it is cool with me, even if they are in bed with them as far as making figures for their various properties.

I have to admit though that I never thought I would see or hear anything of ROM ever again outside of any of the various collectibles shops I frequent. It was a line that I never got into but did peruse a comic or two and remember the toys (vaguely) but that's all buried in the dusty recesses of my childhood.

And darn it Sabrblade... you beat me to the punch with the Knights of Cybertron line.

It'll be cool if that's how they tie him in though. What a head trip that would be.

Marvel did not let it laps.
The ROM comic was based on the original action figure to promote it, that toy failed miserably in retail and was discontinued the very same year, there was also no toy line, just the ROM toy.
The comic however was incredibly popular and continued on, however the license ran out and the toy company had no interest to renew it since the toy hadn't existed for a year.
That toy company has since been acquired by Kenner, who have then been acquired by Hasbro.

The deal was different from the one Marvel had with Hasbro for Transformers, Marvel owns everything from the comics, minus ROM himself. Which is both hilarious and sad at the same time.

Now that Hasbro has figured out that they own ROM, there might be a chance of seeing a damn TPB or Omnibus of the original comics. Oh please let that happen.

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